Helping Hands Cambodia Anniversary
Helping Hands Cambodia is a testament to the power of community, education, and determination. Sopheap, our Project Coordinator and a long-time teacher who has been at the school since its genesis, recently shared, "We never stop. We just keep going and trying hard."
Helping Hands Cambodia has been trying hard for twenty years! Our organization works to bring a holistic education to the rural community of Prasat Char. Sopheap perfectly defined our organization's continued mission: "We can change the life cycle." In rural Cambodia, changing the life cycle means getting an education that allows for more opportunities.
The Power of Education
For instance, one recent Helping Hands Cambodia graduate, Matt, studied IT. He now works as an IT assistant at one of the surrounding NGOs. Another student, Leap, graduated from Helping Hands and continued his studies to become a nurse. He lives in Prasat Char and commutes to work at a hospital in Siem Reap. Examples of student success illuminate how a strong education helps students and their families become self-reliant. This leads to a more sustainable future for the entire community.
In a recent interview, Aline evoked the age-old phrase, “The village educates a child.” For context, Aline is a 78-year-old spitfire from France who has been heavily involved with Helping Hands Cambodia for the past twenty years. Wearing bright blue eyeshadow and a shirt that proclaimed “Stop Wishing, Start Doing,” she also hinted at Helping Hands’ key to success. She exclaimed, “Even now, you know, the parents are involved in the education of their kids, which is very important. Even now, as Sopheap is asking the parents for whatever it is, they come, they are here. If you give education, you give a child and later an adult something to help him or her to live on.”
Sovanna has also been with Helping Hands Cambodia since its inception. She shared that she initially didn’t know what having a school in her community would look like. She “...didn’t know what it was going to look like, but it is something she believed she wanted. To have a school, nicer roads, and a bridge for people in [the] community. [Sovanna] kept believing and working hard despite any challenges.”
Helping Hands Cambodia understands that building a better future takes an entire village.
The Power of Community Involvement
In fact, our school would not exist without the efforts of an entire village.
In 2005, the villagers of Prasat Char asked photographer Deborah Groves to build a school and find ways to improve accessibility to healthcare. Helping Hands Cambodia has been a community project since the first plot of land was cleared by local families. Aline reminisced on the school’s early years, saying, “The very first piece of land we had to build the school on was given by a villager.”
Sovanna, Aline, and Sopheap all reflected on the astounding number of villagers who helped to make the school a possibility for the community. 99 families came to help clear the land for the school, offering their time and physical strength to make the school a reality, but also proving the community’s determination to bring education and better access to health care to their remote village.
Over the years, the power of community involvement has continued to change the lives of those in Prasat Char. For example, when the road flooded and the town got isolated from the rest of the region, the community and Helping Hands Cambodia worked together to construct a bridge. Furthermore, when the first school started to flood during the rainy season, villagers picked up the foundation and literally carried it to the new location. When a young adult woman came to Deborah and asked if she could attend classes as an adult, Deborah said the school was only for kids and teenagers, but the woman asked if another classroom could be built for adults. So, the school paid for the concrete, and the young woman and her friends built the class.
When asked what had changed at the school over the past 20 years, Sopheap said everything. That’s the power of community involvement and determination. “At first, we had only 60 kids coming to the school,” Aline said. Now, Helping Hands Cambodia has over 350 students and dreams of expanding. Sopheap lives by the motto “slowly, but surely,” words that mark the changes over the last 20 years.
Dreams for the Future
The keystone goal for Helping Hands Cambodia's future is to continue providing a well-rounded education.
Sopheap shared his hopes for the school to continue to grow with the addition of a sports field, computer classes, and a library. These improvements would give students even more opportunities to help them in the future, curating a holistic education. Sovanna wants to see Helping Hands Cambodia become better known to the surrounding communities. She wants to see all the current students "graduate and get the job of their dreams."
Many students from Helping Hands Cambodia have gone on to be trained at restaurants, salons, and bakeries. This has allowed graduated students to find jobs in the city of Siem Reap. These opportunities change life cycles and also help bring some of those skills back to their village.
Aline illuminated the importance of education for the whole community. She said, "Education—it's so important. You are free. You can read, you can write, you can understand."
Celebrate This Milestone With Us By Entering Our Raffle
Our 20th Anniversary would not have been possible without the continued support of the Prasat Char community, and the help of staff, volunteers, interns, and donors whose collective determination to build a better future has been unwavering. We look forward to many more years as our community grows locally and globally!
If you’d like to join our 20th Anniversary celebration, please consider buying a raffle ticket. All proceeds go towards Helping Hands Cambodia and our continued efforts to make education accessible. If you’d like to volunteer or intern as an NGO assistant or sports coach at our school, don’t hesitate to check out some of our current projects and opportunities.
